Robert Lower

This film deals straightforwardly with the consequences of a nuclear attack for the Canadian Prairies due to their proximity to intercontinental ballistic missile sites in North Dakota. Scenes include a visit to a missile base and to an emergency government bunker in Manitoba. A doctor, a farmer and a civil defence coordinator provide different perspectives on nuclear war. Although focused on one region, the film provides a model for people everywhere who would like to know more about their own situation but don't know what questions to ask.

Upon the reopening of the opera house where her mother was murdered, a teen and her friends become the targets of a deranged killer dressed in a clown costume.

The story of two very different boys in the Canadian wilderness. They must learn to depend on each other in order to survive.

After the recent loss of her son Sean, Patty Addison devotes herself to finding homes for needy children. The loss of their son has strained Patty's relationship with her husband Mark, but they reconnect emotionally when they take in Emily, a 9-year-old orphaned in a car accident similar to the one that killed Sean. At the same time Dr. Nathan Andrews is trying to find the parents of a boy who died in the ER, and Mark is trying to help one of his son's friends.

An aging con-man and a beautiful, ambitious student cross paths in a scam that promises to make them both rich.

Dawn isn't like other kids her age full of typical teenage angst about boys, school and parents. Her pain goes far deeper, and to deal with her emotional overload she physically cuts herself. The problem of adolescent girls committing self-mutilation is very real, and this movie exposes the growing epidemic. It's a film you can't afford to miss.

Jesse Threebears is a troubled Native-American teen who has been tossed from one foster home to the next since his mother died when he was an infant. Finally, he is taken in by his grandfather who, after a ten year stint in prison, is living on the reservation. With the help of his grandfather and several others who live on the reservation, Jesse begins to learn about his heritage and how to come to terms with his troubled life.

A teenage girl becomes entangled in a volatile relationship with a pair of high-school lovers.

1851, Manitoba's Red River Valley. As winter sets in, a young woman on the edge of madness arrives exhausted at the fort, a wilderness station, claiming she murdered her husband. She's placed in a cell; for the next several months, she sews while the local prefect, Henry Mullen, investigates.

This feature documentary examines its own genre, which has often been called Canada's national art form. Released in the year of the NFB's 75th birthday, Shameless Propaganda is filmmaker Robert Lower's take on the boldest and most compelling propaganda effort in our history (1939-1945), in which founding NFB Commissioner John Grierson saw the documentary as a "hammer to shape society". All 500 of the films produced by the NFB until 1945 are distilled here for the essence of their message to Canadians. Using only these films and still photos from that era, Lower recreates the picture of Canada they gave us and looks in it for the Canada we know today. What he finds is by turns enlightening, entertaining, and unexpectedly disturbing.

This short documentary explores how the First Nations staple of wild rice is exported as a luxury food thanks in part to bush pilots. Follow the families of the Pauingassi band as they comb the reedy shores with brooms, paddles and baskets for manomim (wild rice).

A scientific experiment in rapid-cell growth goes awry when a lab assistant steals the developed serum and injects it into his pregnant girl friend. The result is a child that grows through adulthood and will die within days, if a cure cannot be found.

A confessed killer wanders into a small community in the Canadian prairies.

Jamie is shocked when she and her best friend become victims of homophobic name-calling, but she must face up to her own reactions as she realizes that her friend is "one of them" and needs her support.

A documentary about Nain, a Labrador Inuit community located near the world's largest nickel and copper deposits. As commercial mining interests prepare to exploit the resources, local residents consider the potential environmental and cultural impact. Meanwhile longstanding Aboriginal land claims are unsettled.

The legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt is detailed by combining present day interviews with historical material. It examines his response to the Great Depression and the radical changes in the role of the federal government under his leadership. Social security, collective bargaining, unemployment compensation and control of financial institutions, all parts of Roosevelt’s legacy are examined.

Two aliens escape from 1947 Roswell, New Mexico and set out to sabotage the Earth. The lady alien finds she enjoys sex and likes to seduce soldiers. However, the male eventually falls in love with an Earthling and decides to stop the female from setting off a nuclear weapon the two had developed.

The cod fishery off the east coast of Newfoundland was a way of life, the backbone of society -- until it collapsed. A review of the history leading up to the crisis and the subsequent call for a moratorium of the northwest Atlantic cod fishery.

This feature documentary tells the complex and touching story of Winnipeg city councilor Glen Murray and his 17-year-old adopted son Mike, whose struggles with addiction and behavioural problems cyclically repeat. Glen, now an Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament, was one of the first openly gay elected politicians in Canada. He adopted Mike during an era when homophobic stereotypes often prevented gay men and women from adopting children. Glen and Mike's relationship is always tenuous and always turbulent as they struggle to define themselves together and alone.

A turn of the 20th Century office block at Portage and Main. What was once Winnipeg's most prestigious commercial address has become a catch-all for the marginalized and history's leftovers. A snapshot of a fading era, now gone for good.

There's a new revolution happening overhead. The drones are coming. The question is: who gets to use them, and how?

This documentary focuses on boom-and-bust economic cycles, most notably that of Alberta oil during the '70s and early '80s. When the bust hit after a drop in world oil prices, those business people who knew how to "ride a tornado" cut their losses and moved on, while others were left devastated. When Newfoundland was faced with a possible oil boom of its own in the mid-'80s, it took the lessons of Alberta to heart. Part 3 of the series, Reckoning: The Political Economy of Canada.